John Creswell

John Andrew Jackson Creswell (18 November 1828-23 December 1891) was a member of the US House of Representatives (R-MD 1) from 4 March 1863 to 3 March 1865 (succeeding John W. Crisfield and preceding Hiram McCullough), a US Senator from 9 March 1865 to 3 March 1867 (succeeding Thomas Holliday Hicks and preceding George Vickers), and as Postmaster General from 5 March 1869 to 22 June 1874 (succeeding Alexander Randall and preceding James William Marshall).

Biography
John Andrew Jackson Creswell was born in Creswell's Ferry, Maryland in 1828, and he graduated from Dickinson College in 1848 before becoming a lawyer in 1850. A former Whig, he joined the Democratic Party and supported James Buchanan for President. When the American Civil War began, he remained loyal to the Union and supported President Abraham Lincoln, joining the Radical Republicans and supporting the end of slavery and African-American rights. From 1861 to 1862, he served in the House of Delegates, and he worked to prevent Maryland from seceding. He went on to serve in the US House of Representatives from 1863 to 1865 and as a US Senator from 1865 to 1867. In 1868, he supported Ulysses S. Grant's presidential candidacy, and he served as Grant's Postmaster General from 1869 to 1874 and as Alabama Claims Commissioner from 1874 to 1876. During his term, he appointed both male and female African-Americans to prominent positions in the US Postal System for the first time. He then returned to his private law and banking practices, and he died in Elkton, Maryland in 1891.